


everybody's changing (i don't feel the same)

by DianaSolaris



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Borderline Personality Disorder, Cooking Lessons, Depression, Disordered Eating, Envy Lives AU, Healing, Human AU, Loneliness, M/M, Past EdWin, Past Relationship(s), Physical Disability, Post-Divorce, Recovery, Sad Subtext Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 15:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16856848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DianaSolaris/pseuds/DianaSolaris
Summary: At the end of the day, it's about adjusting. Ed adjusted to having automail - now, he's adjusting to having a cane. Being divorced. Being on his own.Envy will learn eventually, too. Especially now that he's got nothing else to do.





	everybody's changing (i don't feel the same)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TereziMakara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TereziMakara/gifts).



> I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS! i started writing it and then it got kind of sad? But I wouldn't call it angsty so much as like.... sad? but happy ending/hopeful I suppose.
> 
> Happy holiday_wishes present~
> 
> Also, while this is largely Envy Lives/Human Envy AU there is a weird extra AU in this where Ed got back his leg but not his arm. I haven't thought through how that would have happened, but I have a bad leg and felt like projecting a bit. :P

Ed was not, strictly speaking, part of the military anymore. He didn’t have a title, he certainly wasn’t an alchemist anymore, and refusing to use a gun pretty much disqualified him from most actual service. That and despite the good year or so of practice, his new (old?) leg still hadn’t adjusted, so he was stuck on a cane.

  
No, he was no longer part of the military in any way, shape or form. So he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why, when Mustang had asked for his help, he’d said yes.  


(Boredom, really. Teaching was great, but aside from one incident with DIY fire alchemy and a school bathroom, his students weren’t nearly as invigorating as he was used to.)   


Ed made his way down the alley, pausing to put some coins in the beggar-bowls. Their owners didn’t acknowledge him, but he imagined many of them were sick or asleep. This wasn’t a healthy part of Central; the buildings were full of asbestos, many of them were squats, and trying to find somebody down here was like searching for a needle in a haystack.   


The exception was, of course, if the person in question was notoriously bad at keeping a low profile. Ed finally made it to the abandoned building he’d been searching for, and looked up at the shattered windows. The door was missing, with what looked like a stolen shower curtain in its place, tacked up with nails.   
Ed sighed, and pushed his way in, grimacing a little as the layer of bones, stolen jewellery, sticks and whatnot crunched under his feet. He hoped there were more sticks than bones. He tapped his cane against the doorway, then when there was no response, opted for a different approach.  


“Oi. Fuckface.”   


A pair of purple eyes opened in the dark far corner of the squat. “…You’re fucking kidding me.”

Ed rubbed his temple. Why him? Why did he have to come here and make some sort of overture? The real answer was because Mustang was fairly certain he’d kill anybody else on side, especially military. And I don’t want to do the paperwork.   


“You’re still alive?” came the irritable voice from the darkness. “Great. My life didn’t suck enough.”   


Ed poked at a chicken carcass on the floor with his cane, pulling a face. “You seem to be eating just fine. Uh, was that dead before you ate it?”   


Envy poked his head into the light, a sneer on his face. “No, and you won’t be either.”   


“Uh huh.” Ed stood his ground, leaning on his cane with a sigh. “I’m here on behalf of –“   


“I’m here on behalf of,” Envy repeated mockingly.    


“Do you want me to shoot you? Because I will just shoot you.”   


“You’re not carrying a gun.”   


“Fine, break your neck. Whatever version of death you prefer. See, I’m nice. I’m giving you a choice.” Ed hoped Envy hadn’t caught on that he couldn’t do alchemy anymore. Alchemy-less and disabled, he didn’t actually stand a chance against Envy if he did decide Ed would make a good meal.   


Ed’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he could just make out Envy slouching in the corner. He was still wearing the same ridiculous ensemble, crop-top and miniskirt decidedly out of place amidst the carnage. “What do you want?” Envy groaned with a hint of exhaustion.   


Well, he wasn’t dead yet. Ed could work with this. “You’re getting a bit of a reputation in these parts. As you’ve probably guessed, Central City doesn’t particularly want a monster around, even if you are sticking to the slums.”   


“So you’re here to kill me.”   


“Actually, I’m here to ask you to stop eating people.” Oh, the phrases he thought he’d never say. “Nicely.”   


Envy stared at him incredulously. Then he dissolved into cackling laughter, falling on his side.   


“I’m going to assume that’s a no,” Ed drawled.    


“You really are the most arrogant shit I’ve ever met,” Envy wheezed, wiping a fake tear from his face. “Oh, look at me, I’m Fullmetal, I am going to just. What, talk me out of eating? Or maybe I should subsist entirely on those damn chickens.”   


“Maybe you should try veganism.”   


“Oh. Yeah. Sure. It was really a priority when I was made to make sure I could digest tofu.”   


Ed shrugged. “Well, I suppose I’m not going to convince you.” He turned around and began to leave.   


“You’re leaving?”    


Ed decided to pretend he hadn’t heard the note of plaintive loneliness in Envy’s voice. He imagined any actual pity would definitely lead to some mild beheading. “Yep. Watch out for the military, though. Mustang still has it out for you.”   


He began to walk back down to the street, towards Central City itself and the train that would take him home. At first, he was too lost in thought, thinking about how Mustang would ‘take care’ of Envy. He didn’t want to be around for that.   


Then, Ed heard the rustling behind him, footsteps almost completely silent. He didn’t acknowledge them – but allowed himself a small roll of the eyes.   


\---   


By the time he’d updated Mustang and gotten all his stuff ready for the train ride, Ed was exhausted. Using a cane was tiring – nobody else understood really, except perhaps for Mustang. He’d undergone surgery to restore some sight in one of his eyes, but Ed couldn’t ignore the way he strained to listen to everything around him, trying to replace his vision with another sense. Bodies adapted, eventually. But until you got there, everything was uphill.   


Either way, Ed was just happy to be back on the train. The hard wooden seats weren’t as much as a relief as his bed would be, but they were comforting in their familiarity. He needed to send Al a letter when he got home – although he wasn’t sure how to describe years of fruitless searching as nostalgic.    


The train left the station. Ed stretched out his legs, wincing as his knee joint clicked. Then he tapped on the back of his seat. “If you want to come sit over here,” he said casually, “you can.”   


A green head poked over the back of the seat, and Envy glared down at him with indignation. “Are you a witch?”  
“Nope. Just spent six months with Greed.” Ed chuckled despite himself. “Homunculi are quiet, but you still have some tell-tale signs.”  


“Like what?” Envy challenged.   


“Like your total inability to admit that you just want company.”   


“What kind of pathetic conclusion is that?”   


Ed just settled down into the seat, propping his head up against his bag. “I’m sure I’m wrong. I mean, you must be making all sorts of friends before you eat them.”  
Envy hissed something in another language that Ed didn’t catch, and vanished.  


\--   


_Who am I?  
_

_One name you might have for me is The World.  
_

_The Universe.  
_

_God.  
_

_The Truth.  
_

_I am all and I am one – I am you I am you I am you  
_

_ I WILL ALWAYS BE WATCHING YOU FROM THE SHADOWS- _

\--

  
Ed woke in a cold sweat. He wasn’t screaming – that was progress, at least. He’d gotten too used to the things that his subconscious threw at him to do more than wake in terror, keep his mouth shut, and readjust to his surroundings.  


It was sunset outside, red light pouring onto his face. He’d be pulling into Rizenbul soon.    


Then, suddenly, Ed realized he wasn’t alone. While he’d been sleeping, Envy had crawled into the opposite seat, purple eyes fixed on him. He was draped across the seat in a mockery of Ed’s position, and Ed wondered if it was one purpose.    


“…What were you doing?”   


“Sleeping?”   


“I know what sleeping is,” Envy snorted. “But you kept moving.”   


“Oh. Just bad dreams.”   


Envy frowned at that. Ed was struck with the feeling that he didn’t fully understand, but he nodded anyway. Then, after a moment of silence, he asked, “I thought dreams were good things.”   


“They’re supposed to be.”   


Envy nodded again. He was much less defensive than before, Ed noted. Either it was progress, or the homunculus was trying to lure him into a false sense of security.    


“Question.”   


“What?” Envy almost snarled.   


“What was that language you were speaking? I don’t know it.”   


Envy snorted. “I thought a stuck-up prat like you would have learned it by now. Xerxian.”   


Of course, Ed realized. Envy’s first language wouldn’t be Amestrian. “It hasn’t exactly survived, you know.”   


The train pulled into the station with a screech of brakes. Ed glanced out of the window, and then when he looked back in the train, Envy was gone.   


\---   


The house was empty. He’d expected that, but he still wasn’t used to it. Eventually, he’d take the pictures down from the wall, or at least turn them around. But for now, Ed hobbled into the house in the hill with a few choice curse words, collapsed onto the couch and pulled the tensor bandages from the closest surface.    


He was still conscious of Envy’s presence. The fucker had followed him all the way home, but still wouldn’t actually appear beyond glimpses out of the corner of Ed’s eye. He had to wonder how much socialization practice the homunculi had ever gotten; from what Greed had said, they hadn’t ever really interacted with anybody but each other.    


Ed wrapped the bandages around his knee. A shadow materialized in the kitchen, and Ed ignored it. If Envy was going to cause problems, he would have done something before now. Instead, the shadow went around the kitchen, picking things up and putting them down, rubbing his fingers over the counters, examining everything with a careful curiosity.   


When Envy reached for the pictures, though –   


“Don’t,” Ed mumbled.   


Envy’s hand paused in mid-air. Ed waited for some sort of quip about sentimentality, or cruel jibe, but instead, the curiosity stayed. “…Where’s your wife?”  
“Rush Valley.” Ed tucked the end of the bandages in, carefully concentrating on adjusting the strips until they were as close to parallel as he could make them. “And she’s not my wife.”  


Envy’s finger touched the edge of the wedding photo, almost like a question.   


“Yeah, that lasted for about six months. Turns out I don’t make a great husband.”   


“I could kill her. If you wanted.” A wicked smile in the darkness, teeth bright and white – but Ed thought the request seemed sincere, if awful.   


“If that’s how you’ve been trying to make friends, I’m shocked you don’t have any,” Ed grumbled. “It was… amicable.”   


“And you’re all alone in a big house. Wasn’t this her house?” Finally, there was that jibing tone, the sense that Envy was trying to get a rise out of him. “What happened? She decide she wanted the kind of husband who didn’t offer himself up to monsters as a negotiation tactic?”   


Ed’s automail hand clenched automatically. But he wasn’t going to give Envy the satisfaction. “Sometimes things just don’t work out. Sometimes people leave. There’s nothing wrong with that.”   


The picture hurtled through the air, and Ed just barely ducked it, broken glass showering down on him and the frame crashing to the ground.   


Huh.   


Envy strode towards him, arms crossed and his sneer back on his face. “Let’s make this clear, Fullmetal-“ he grabbed a handful of Ed’s hair, yanking his head back – “you do not know fuck all about people leaving.”   


Ed stared up into the homunculus’s eyes, an old feistiness rising up in him. It’d been a while since he’d gotten to fight with somebody. “Really? Are you still hung up over Greed dumping you?”   


Quickly, he realized he’d made a miscalculation – Envy was way stronger than he’d remembered. He went flying across the room, crashing into the wall and collapsing down onto the ground – and his knee made a click that he did not like the sound of. Still, he struggled to his feet, tasting blood in his mouth with a thrill.    


“Shut the fuck up.”   


Ed managed a smile, although his whole body hurt. He was out of practice. “Make me.”   


Envy’s hands found his neck, squeezing until Ed’s vision was full of spots. Then when everything had been black for a few seconds –    


-he let go. Ed collapsed back against the wall, and waited for his vision to clear, listening to Envy’s footsteps fade away.   


He’d be back.   


\---   


They fell into a comfortable rhythm over the next few weeks, and honestly, Ed was grateful for it. On his own, it would have been easy to forget to eat for a few days, or bury himself in books until he couldn’t think straight, or just sleep until his body forced him to wake up. But with somebody else – intermittently – around, Ed found himself adapting to a schedule of sorts. Sure, maybe he’d only eat once a day. But every time he turned the oven on, suddenly Envy would appear at the window, curiosity warring with carefully-feigned apathy.    


“What’s that?”   


“A stove.”   


“I know what a stove is. What are you making?”   


Ed laughed. It was easy to tease Envy, he’d discovered. It was like talking to a sheltered teenager, he decided – chances were, Envy didn’t fully understand what a stove was, but it wasn’t like he’d ever admit it. He wiped his hands off on his jeans. “Baked beans.”   


“Baked whats?”   


“Baked beans.” Ed jerked his head towards the stove. “Come in here, I’ll show you.”   


Envy sat on the table, peering over at the colander of beans with confusion. “Okay, that kind of bean. Why are you baking them?”   


“Those have been soaking overnight. I’m going to boil them, with bacon, brown sugar, onion, molasses and salt.”   


“And then you have baked beans.”   


“Then you cook it for four hours.”

“Four hours?” Envy’s jaw dropped in horror, and he pressed up close behind Ed, staring over his shoulder into the pot where the bacon was cooking. “How do you have that much time?”   


“I’m a divorced schoolteacher and it’s summer. Besides, cooking is basically just alchemy. You have to know how things go together, and you make something new.”   


“Ew.”   


Ed picked up one of the bacon strips with his automail arm and handed it to Envy. “Eat this and shut up.”   


There was a slurp, and then Ed turned around. Envy turned red, wiping the grease off of his mouth, and Ed sighed, shoulders slumping.   


“Next time, chew.”   


“Yeah, yeah. Can I have another one?”   


“Wait your damn turn!”   


\---   


And then, Envy stopped showing up for a while. Ed couldn’t help but wonder if he’d done something wrong, or if the homunculus had just gotten bored. He waited a week, and then another, and then when the end of the month came, he gave up the schedule. He started school again in two weeks – he didn’t have time to worry about Envy. At least that was what he told himself.    


He’s a homunculus, he reminded himself. Reality check. He’d been playing house with a murderer and monster. Just because Envy listened to him and asked him questions about his books, or actually tried his cooking, or fought him when Ed felt like pissing somebody off.    


The last time they’d fought, Ed had almost won. He didn’t know why that bothered him so much, but it kept pinging as wrong. Envy always won, and then left Ed lying on the ground with a dozen new bruises and a split lip, or whatever else. It was the backbone of whatever odd arrangement they’d subconsciously fallen into – Envy could kill Ed at any time. If he wanted to.    


Ed settled onto the conclusion that Envy hated to lose, or even almost lose. That had to be it.   


The phone rang, and he answered it without thinking. “Yeah?”   


“Ed, it’s Winry.”   


Oh.    


Ed swallowed. They hadn’t talked much, since. He just had to remember how. “…Hey. Uh, what’s up?”   


Winry took a deep breath. “I…know you felt weird about us… you know. But I really, really don’t think this is the way to deal with it!”   


“What?” Ed racked his brain. Had somebody in Rizenbul told Winry about his bruises? He couldn’t think of anything else.   


“I don’t know what you said to…this person, your student, I’m guessing? But I really – if we’re going to be friends, or at least nice to each other, I can’t have people coming up to me and giving me shit. It’s not fair on me-“   


“Wait. What?”   


“Don’t play innocent!”   


“Winry, I swear to god, I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about. I wouldn’t do that. You know I wouldn’t.” The anger bubbled up behind his lips, but he kept it to himself – the idea that Winry thought he was so desperate to get her back that he’d send people after her.   


Then a horrible thought occurred to him.   


“Uh. Winry. What does this friend look like?”   


“A little taller than me, green hair, glasses? All dressed in black. I figured he was one of your poets or something.”   


Ed bit down on his tongue, then cursed, spitting out some blood into the sink. Ow. “…Tell him to get his ass back here before I go out there and beat the hell out of him.”   


“What? But he’s a-“   


“Repeat offender,” Ed growled. “He’s getting detention.” The concept of Envy as a student amused him more than it should, actually. He wasn’t even convinced the homunculus could read Amestrian.    


“…He says it was important?”   


Ed pinched the bridge of his nose. “Put him on the phone.”   


“Uh, alright.”   


Ed had come to terms, mostly, with the fact that he’d liked having Envy around. It was an exercise in cognitive dissonance, but everything had stopped feeling real once Al and Winry had both left. Envy was the only thing tying him to the past, and he couldn’t decide whether that was good or bad.   


“…are you upset with me?” came the voice through the phone, and Ed was seized with a sudden urge to cry.    


“A little,” he admitted. “I wish you’d… told me where you were going.”   


“I’ll come back. It’s fine.”   


Ed had a strange feeling that ‘it’s fine’ was Envy’s way of saying sorry. But it still pissed him off.   


\---   


When the knock at the door came, Ed opened it to Envy standing there in clothes that didn’t seem like they fit, a pair of reading glasses perched awkwardly on his nose, and the closest to a genuinely contrite expression he’d ever seen.   


“Tell me why I should let you in,” Ed challenged. He really was angry this time, he realized, fire glowing under his sternum, blood pumping. “Tell me why the hell I owe you that.”   


Envy didn’t say anything. Then, like stone cracking, his face split into a smile that was not quite – right. “I just told her that she shouldn’t have left you. I don’t know why you’re acting like –“   


Ed slammed his automail fist against the door. “It’s not any of your fucking business!”   


“People shouldn’t leave. Promises are promises, you know? And if that uppity bitch wants to leave you, why shouldn’t she at least feel bad about it? I didn’t hurt her.”   


“Our marriage was not working out and there is nothing wrong with that-“   


“There’s everything wrong with that!” Envy broke into an incredulous laugh. “God, no wonder you’re depressed. She leaves you and you’re just supposed to take it?”   


“I’m not depressed.”   


“I was here for two months and you didn’t get so much as a phone call! You wouldn’t even get out of bed if I wasn’t here.”   


“Rich. That’s real fucking rich. You’re the one who made yourself perfectly at home. Without me, you’d be sitting in a slum wasting away like the piece of trash you are,” Ed snarled. He didn’t know where the last part had come from. He couldn’t remember being this anger.   


“You wanna call me trash? Really?” Envy took a step into the house, then another, looming over Ed. “You practically ask me to beat the shit out of you. No wonder I thought maybe you missed your sweet lil childhood friend.”   


Ed backed up against the kitchen counter, reaching behind him for something to defend himself with. He was still angry – it thrummed under his skin, an uneasy, unfamiliar feeling that he used to love – but he was scared, too. Envy actually felt like an enemy, again.    


Envy got too close, and Ed lashed out with the knife. He didn’t get far, but the blade slashed across Envy’s cheek –   


Ed dropped the knife, suddenly regretting it. Maybe it was the sight of the blood dripping down Envy’s face. Then, as the drops of blood landed on the floor with little plinks, it all came together.   


The cut wasn’t healing.   


Envy glanced up at Ed from under his long eyelashes. He hadn’t taken a single other form, since Ed had seen him in the slum. He hadn’t so much as changed his hair colour – it looked like he’d just poured soot onto it to dye it darker, but Ed could still see the green tips at the end, and he doubted Winry had looked that closely.   


“…You’re human.”   


“So?”   


“You’re human.”    


There hadn’t been any human bones on the floor of the slum. All the reports had been from scared or hurt people. Nobody had been dead after all.   


In his mind’s eye, Ed found himself replaying a memory over and over in his head. Envy, lying on the seat across from him, trying to duplicate Ed’s posture, as if the right angle of his elbows and the right position of his legs would teach him something he didn’t know.   


“Yeah, I’m fucking human now. And I’m alone. The rest are dead, and I came so – so fucking close to it. You saved my life and now you won’t even – fucking – let me help! I am trying to help!” Envy’s words were getting more and more panicky. “She wasn’t allowed to leave you. People shouldn’t just – just leave, without saying goodbye, without even bothering with –“   


“Envy, I don’t –“   


“-and you can’t even, get upset if they leave? Is that how that works? You just let them go and let them abandon you like, like you’re nothing? Like you’re worthless?”   


“Envy!”   


The fist came towards him, and Ed braced for it – but then, instead, Envy’s long, thin fingers sprawled on his cheek, and traced the bone structure of his face. Then Envy’s head dropped, butting against Ed’s sternum.   


“…please don’t make me leave,” came the whisper. And Ed could still remember the way Envy had laughed, talking about shooting a child, taunting Mustang over Hughes’s death – but that had been somebody who thought there was no way they could lose. Somebody on the cusp of victory. Somebody with a family, with a purpose, with a way forward.   


Ed exhaled, dropping the knife into the sink and pressing his thumb to the cut on Envy’s cheek. Not too deep, thankfully. He didn’t know how Envy had turned human, but the evidence was incontrovertible.    


“I’m glad you came back,” he murmured in response. “And next time you want to try to help, just… ask me first.”   


“Okay.” Envy mumbled. “Okay.”

Ed could feel his own heartbeat against Envy’s chest.  _ Everything will be okay,  _ it told him in drumbeats he hardly even recognized, his own heart telling him what he already knew.  _ Everything will be okay. _   


\---   


The bed was warmer with two people. Ed remembered that much. He wasn’t sure when Envy had last slept, or if he’d even figured out that he had to now, but he was completely still on the mattress next to him.    


Sometimes, things didn’t work out. Ed had broken his fingers punching the wall the first night after Winry had left. Things were supposed to go a certain way. You were supposed to marry your childhood friend, settle down, have kids, find something peaceful to do with your time. You were supposed to grow up.   


You weren’t supposed to find yourself living with somebody you barely knew. Somebody who didn’t know, yet, how to be human. It was more than just bleeding and hurting – but Envy didn’t know that yet. And you weren’t supposed to fall in love with somebody who’d done terrible things.

Well, if Ed knew about anything, he knew about remorse. He knew what it looked like, what it sounded like. You tried to prove you were different, before the apologies ever left your mouth - because once you started apologizing, you’d never stop.   


Ed brushed some of Envy’s hair out of his face, then hesitantly leaned down and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He still remembered how much it’d hurt, getting the automail and learning how to use it. Hell, he still had days where he wanted to throw his cane down the stairs, hack off his leg and just get automail again rather than be stuck with a cane.    


It was all about adjusting. It was messy, and it took longer than anybody ever hoped or expected.   


“One day,” Ed murmured to the boy in bed with him, “you are going to wake up, and feel like everything is normal again. And it is going to feel so fucking good when you do.”  
Envy didn’t respond, but pushed his face further into the pillow. Ed wrapped a protective arm around him, breathed in the scent of the back of his neck (had he ever been this close to somebody else? Al, and Winry, and nobody else. It was all about adjusting.) and closed his eyes.


End file.
